Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz

Like the "Mercury 7" astronauts, the Soviets went through a selection process to pick the men who would fly their spacecraft. These 20 men were chosen from the military and were all experienced pilots. The final selection was announced on 3/14/60, about one year after the Mercury 7 were introduced.

The craft used to put a cosmonaut in orbit would be the Vostok (the word Vostok literally means "East" in Russian, but in the usage here, it is more equivalent to "East, as in the dawn") . Like the Mercury capsule that followed, the Vostok held a single occupant. The Vostok capsule weighed-in at 4.7 tons, had a length of 14.4 ft, and a diameter of 7.9 ft. There were two sub-units, the reentry module, and the instrument/retrorocket module. The reentry module was spherical, and had a diameter of 7.5 ft, and a mass of 2.5 tons.

The instrument/retrorocket module was 7.5 ft long, and had a diameter of 7.9 ft. This part of the craft was jettisoned right before reentry, and was destroyed upon its return through the atmosphere. The retrorockets were used to slow the entire craft down for reentry.

In a departure from the American mode of operation, the Vostok cosmonaut would eject from the reentry capsule at an altitude of 4 miles, and parachute back to the ground (the reentry module would also parachute back to ground unoccupied).

Like the American program, the Soviet's first tested their spacecraft using both unmanned craft, and some with animal passengers. The first Vostok flight occurred on 5/15/60. It failed on reentry. After five more flights, however, the Vostok was deemed reliable enough for a manned flight.

Yuri Gagarin was chosen for the first flight. After a few delays, Vostok 1 lifted off on 4/12/61. After one orbit, Gagarin returned to Earth. The sub-orbital flight of Alan Shepard (MR-3) occurred one month later.

Vostok 2 was originally planned as a three orbit mission, but to increase its PR value, Khrushchev directed it to last an entire day. It was launched on 8/6/61 carrying cosmonaut Gherman Titov. The only flaw in this mission was the fact that Titov became the first victim of space-sickness. Titov's illness did worry the Soviet doctors-was this a common occurrence? Might the human body not be able to cope with weightlessness? More flights would be needed to find out.

After a one year break, the Soviets surprised the world with a dual launch: Vostok 3 reached orbit on 8/11/62, followed by Vostok 4 one day later. These two craft came within four miles of each other (note that this was without maneuvering capabilities!). This showed a high-level of competence, and worried the US administration. Neither cosmonaut had any symptoms of space sickness, much to the relief of the Soviet doctors.

Ten months later, the Soviets repeated the two-mission event (Vostoks 5 and 6), but this time, the second Vostok carried the first female cosmonaut: Valentina Tereshkova. Another Soviet space first. Vostok 6 was the final mission for this capsule.

Like their US counterparts would do a few years later, the Soviets now planned multi-manned missions. The Soviet equivalent of the Gemini program was the Voshkod . The Voskhod ("Advance") was very similar to the Vostok, except it could carry up to three cosmonauts. It also possessed a backup retrorocket pack, an extendable airlock for spacewalks, and descent retrorockets to slow the reentry module for a soft touchdown.

With a multi-man crew, it would be extremely dangerous for the crew to eject at high altitude. Thus, Voshkod's biggest operational change was the reentry routine. Because the reentry module was nearly identical to the tiny Vostok, and there was a larger crew, there was insufficient space for the cosmonauts to wear spacesuits on Voshkod missions!

The first (unmanned) test of the Voshkod occurred on 10/7/64. It was successful, and a manned mission was scheduled. Voshkod 1 carried a three man crew (Komarov, Yegorov, and Feoktistov). Only five days after the first full unmanned test, Voshkod 1 lifted off (on 10/12/64). The mission lasted 16 orbits (about a day), and the Soviets had achieved another space first.

The next mission, Voskhod 2 would record another first: a spacewalk. This mission was preceded by an unmanned flight (Cosmos 47). But the craft broke into pieces while in orbit. Combined with a drop-test failure, you would have expected a delay, but Korolev felt confident, and Voshkod 2 was launched on schedule (3/18/65).

The interior of the Voshkod craft was not meant to be operated in a vacuum, so it could not be depressurized for a space walk. To allow a cosmonaut to exit the craft, the Voshkod was equipped with an airlock.

The cosmonaut in the spacesuit climbs into the airlock, closes the inner hatch, depressurizes it, then opens the outer hatch to exit. The first person to attempt this would be Alexei Leonov on Voshkod 2.

Everything went as planned, and Leonov exited the airlock. But on attempting to reenter, he found that his spacesuit had inflated to the point where it was impossible to properly fit into the airlock. To allow him to reenter, he was forced to depressurize his own suit, a dangerous exercise! Eventually, Leonov was able to get back in.

The other notable event of this flight was the failure of the normal reentry system, and Leonev and Belyayev had to use the backup retrorocket system to return. They landed way off course, and had to wait an entire day for rescue.

Surprisingly, Voshkod 2 was the last manned flight of this craft.

The next Korolev project was the Soviet's answer to Apollo, called the Soyuz (Union). The Soyuz was designed to carry a crew of three cosmonauts to the moon.

The Soyuz was composed of three main modules, the spherical "orbital module" (7.5 ft diameter), a similarly sized reentry module, and an instrument module. The latter two modules performed a similar function to the command and service modules of Apollo. A docking mechanism was attached to the orbital module to allow the Soyuz to perform crew transfer and such, once in orbit.

The Soyuz weighed-in at 6.8 tons, more than 3,000 lbs less than the Apollo CSM-while providing more volume, and an airlock. The controls remained primitive however. The technology used by the Soviets in the Soyuz were barely advanced beyond Vostok-being equivalent to the technology of the Mercury program (it would be 15 yrs before the technology of the Soyuz reached the level of the Gemini).

Korolev had planned a moon mission using a series of modified R-7 boosters. His first ideas for a lunar mission were based on using a modified Vostok capsule. With additional hardware launched and ready in orbit, a craft for a lunar mission would be assembled, and then sent to the moon. This plan was quickly dropped, and the Soyuz craft, already on Korolev's drawing boards won favor. Unfortunately, Korolev died (on 1/14/66) before the first test flights of the Soyuz.

This Soyuz (or any comparable craft) would require a larger booster to reach the moon. Nearly simultaneously to Korolev's space programs, his main competition Chelomei's group, was developing the Proton booster for their own attempt at a lunar orbiter mission using a modified Soyuz craft (the "Zond"). [Chelomei could do this because he had the ear of the Soviet Premier do to the fact that he had hired Krushchev's son.] The Proton tests were successful in 1965 and 1966 opening the way for a series of test flights. The Soviet's certainly thought they could beat the US to the moon.

The first test, named Cosmos 133, occurred on November 28, 1966. But the reentry module improperly returned to Earth and instead of having it land in China, it was destroyed. The next mission ended with a launch-pad explosion. The third test was more successful, but a plug burned out and the capsule was depressurized and damaged.

Even with this low reliability, it was decided to forge ahead with a manned mission to celebrate Lenin's birthday. On April 23, 1967, veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was driven to the launch pad. There was considerable foreboding in the atmosphere-a pre-flight checkout had found more than 200 defects in the Soyuz!

The liftoff occurred without incident, but soon after reaching orbit, one of the solar panels failed to properly deploy, leaving the craft without sufficient power to properly navigate and orient itself. The maneuvering system also failed as did the craft's thermal controls. Komarov even had a hard time keeping in radio contact.

With all of these problems, the second Soyuz mission (that was going to launch the next day to dock with Komarov's craft) was quickly scrubbed, and the decision was made to terminate the flight of Soyuz 1. On his 19^th orbit, Komarov fired the retrorockets for reentry-but the main parachute failed to deploy, and the backup chute became tangled. With neither parachute system deployed, the Soyuz module crashed into the ground at high speed, killing Komarov.

Vladimir Komarov became the first person to die during a space mission, his death came just three months after the tragic fire of Apollo 1. As with Apollo, this tragedy set back the Soviet program. Their next manned spaceflight would not occur for 18 months.

The modified Soyuz module, called Zond had been tested before the Soyuz 1 tragedy. Two moderately successful tests were accomplished. In the meantime the original Soyuz craft had been redesigned to insure reliability. Late in '67, and early '68, a number of unmanned tests of this craft were successfully accomplished.

Several months (3/29/68) before the final unmanned test scheduled for August, 1968, the Soviet space program suffered yet another major blow-while flying a routine training mission, the plane piloted by Yuri Gagarin crashed, killing him, and another cosmonaut (Vladimir Seryogin).

In just a little over two years, the Soviets had lost three vital members of their space program. Overcoming these demoralizing events and beating the US to the moon would be difficult.

The resumption of the manned program occurred on October '68, with the launch of the unmanned Soyuz 2. A day later the manned Soyuz 3 (piloted by Georgi Beregovoi) would reach orbit. It was thought that the two craft would rendezvous (like the two previous dual unmanned flights). But this never happened. No satisfactory reason was given as to why the two craft hadn't docked.

A month later, the Soviet's achieved another PR victory with the launch of the unmanned Zond 6 on a circumlunar trip that brought back pictures of the moon. This craft suffered cabin depressurization on reentry, if astronauts had been onboard, they would have died. In addition, its parachute system failed and the capsule crashed! It was obvious that making it to the moon anytime soon would be difficult.

One month later, Apollo 8 successfully completed the first manned circumlunar voyage. This took some of the wind from the sails of the Soviet program, and added even more pressure to their lunar landing mission.

In January of '69, Soyuz 4 and 5 finally performed the dual docking of two Soyuz spacecraft. In this adventure, portions of the crews were exchanged between the two craft. Paving the way for a future space station.

With it becoming more obvious that the US would beat the Soviets with a manned mission to the moon, a new effort to upstage the US program was devised: an unmanned probe that would return lunar samples before the Americans (see the late 60's Luna missions).

By the Spring of '69, the probe was ready. Its launch, however, failed due to a problem with the Proton booster. With the successful test of the LM on Apollo 10 (5/18/69), and the announcement that Apollo 11 would land on the moon in July, the time was running short to get a lunar sample back before the Americans.

Another attempt was made on June 14^th, but the Proton failed. The next attempt came on July 3^rd, the first test of the new N-1 booster. The N-1 hadn't been fully tested, and this enormous rocket exploded shortly after liftoff, destroying the launch pad.

In on last-gasp attempt to upstage Apollo 11, Luna 15 was launched on 7/13/69 (three days ahead of Apollo 11). Luna 15 made it to lunar orbit, and began its (slower) descent almost simultaneous to that of the Apollo 11 LM. Shortly afterwards, however, it crashed. The moon race was over.

The background events leading to the construction of the N1 booster (the Soviet counterpart to the Saturn V) are quite interesting. The origin of the booster expected to actually take the Soviets to the moon started in the early 60's.

The earliest designs included a nuclear reactor that would heat ammonia to a high temperature and use it as a propellant. Several designs were constructed, but even the Soviets realized that if any of the tests failed, the contamination would be severe, and these designs were eventually dropped in favor of normal chemical engines. Still, many more designs for various nuclear powered rockets were considered.

A variety of designs for a heavy lifter were drawn up, with the result that the draft N-1 had a liftoff mass of 2,000 tons, and a payload of 70 to 75 tons. But competition between Glushko, Chelomei, and Korolev insured that the progress on this booster was going to be too slow to beat the US to the moon.

Korolev's final N-1 design evolved into a five stage rocket. The first stage had 30 engines! All four tests were failures, and the program was cancelled in 1972 in favor of the "Energia" heavy lifter.